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6 Responses to “Assorted Links”

Not surprised about the sleep study–my experience has been that I can focus much better on mundane tasks while sleep-deprived because my mind is not as easily understimulated. Back in college, a sleep deprived day meant I listened better to lectures, but had a harder time completing problem sets.

I’ve also hypothesized, similar to the study, that “taking a break” in order to solve a problem will be much less effective if that break is spent on noisy stimuli such as internet surfing.

“In the past journalism was an act of courage, revealing truths in the face of powerful establishments and risking jail or even death.”

No, it wasn’t. While some journalist have indeed behaved in such a manner, most by far have never done so, even remotely. Journalism has always and mostly been a form of advertisement whether social, political, or simply commercial.

Seth: I think his point is that such cases (“act of courage”) were more common.

If that was his intention, he was not clear. Besides, even if he had been more circumspect in his assertions, there are too many self-promoting myths surrounding journalism (it is, after all, one of the main functions of journalism) to accept such claim at face value. A good example is the alleged versus real role of the press in the Watergate scandal.

Seth: Let me give some examples of journalistic courage. Ida Tarbell. Veronica Guerin, the reporter who was killed in Ireland. Here is a list of journalists killed in Russia. Here is more on journalists being killed. Yes, most journalists do not work in war zones or expose corruption, as you say. But since some do, for minimal rewards, journalists are not the first people I would accuse of cowardice.